Social media takes perseverance to pay off.
Molina offers 10 tips to help you reach the finish line:
1. Start with influencers. Ask them to share their opinions on a topic or discuss what they're reading at the moment.
2. Focus on your audience’s pain. Forget about amassing followers, and focus instead on engaging people by publishing relevant content.
3. Tell a story bigger than your event. Tap into industry trends and news. People will register for your event because your finger's on the pulse.
4. Automate, but don't go on autopilot. Unless you're engaged in online conversations, you're faking it. "Automation can be a great time saver, but unless your technology is enabling you to build better relationships online as well as making your life easier, it's suspect," Molina says.
5. Blog. LinkedIn posts have only hours to work, Tweets only minutes. "Great blog posts deliver traffic for years."
6. Don’t expect influencers to help overnight. Results will take months, and come only if you stay on task.
7. Stick to one voice. Inconsistency detracts. "There's nothing weirder than talking to someone on social media and one day they're all informal and jokey and their next post is like a corporate jargon-athon."
8. Enlist your team. Do more with more. "Even if all they do is retweet or give you a bit of a generic back slap for your content, it all counts."
9. Make social media a habit. "Social media isn't an add on 'seasoning' to an event marketing plan," Molina says. You must make a serious effort.
10. Invite followers. Inform, intrigue, instigate, incent; and eschew all me-talk. "If all you do is go 'me, me, me' it's not going to be the shocker of the century when people stop listening," Molina says.
